According to the British newspaper The Guardian, manuscripts of American writer John Steinbeck's most famous novel, The Grapes of Wrath, will be published for the first time, revealing hidden details of his creative process, including profanity removed from previous publications, indicating the urgency of the author's writing.
Grapes of Wrath is a novel written by Steinbeck in less than 100 days between May and October 1938. He tried to write the story of the bankruptcy and flight of a large number of farmers he reported on as a reporter for the San Francisco News. At that time, Steinbeck had already published Between Man and Mouse, and he felt great pressure and responsibility, writing in his diary: "This must be a good book, it must be so." I don't have any options. It had to be the best creative process I'd ever tried—slowly but surely laying out the details until a picture and an experience came up. ”
Independent publisher SPBooks released a manuscript version of the novel on October 7. The manuscript is filled with Steinbeck's tiny handwriting, beginning with a capital "NEW START."
Steinbeck also began by noting "Big Writing," presumably as a reminder to keep his typists and proofreaders, his first wife, Carol Steinbeck, in clear handwriting. Despite this, his handwriting grew smaller and smaller as he raced against time to reach the completion of his novel, missing commas, capital letters, periods, and quotation marks along the way. At the end of chapter eight, he notes "End Chapter 8 long son of a bitch too," writes "halfway" when he reaches page 98, and writes END under his last line. "She looked up at the barn opposite, her lips crossed, and smiled mysteriously," Steinbeck wrote on October 26, 1938, when the novel was over.
SP Books said: "From beginning to end, Steinbeck's manuscript proves that he was single-minded in his writing, with an almost ruthless determination and discipline. Previously, they had published copies of original manuscripts of novels including Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and JM Barry's Peter Pan and Wendy.
There are hardly any lines or rewrites in the manuscript, although the original shows how publisher Viking Press edited Steinbeck's dozen uses of the word "fuck" in an attempt to make the novel less controversial.
The manuscript itself, the only version of Grapes of Wrath, is preserved in the archives of the University of Virginia. Susan Shillinglaw, a scholar at Steinbeck, said that "to see the author's handwriting is to quietly approach the source of inspiration", describing it as a "powerful moment".
"The handwriting begins in large letters and becomes smaller and smaller as the writing progresses. One can feel Steinbeck's sense of urgency from it. He wanted to capture the history that was happening, and in fact, that was exactly what he had accomplished. This manuscript shows the gravity of the task he has undertaken — capturing the sadness of California immigrants in the late 1930s — and the urgency of his accounting," said Susan Hillingro.
Hiringro notes that the manuscript reproduction reproduces the vague "slut" written at the end of the manuscript, which she describes as an "archival mystery." Was it his wife, Carol, who playfully wrote the word in red and then erased it off?" Or did someone at the University of Virginia Archives deface the manuscript? "I suspect it's the latter, but we can never be sure." But this time the publication did not shy away from the problem, but chose to present the faint traces on the last page together. ”
Hiringro added that the manuscript also reveals the extent to which the writer's wife, Carol, was involved in the writing. Steinbeck wrote it in his head before he put the words on paper, and he knew the shape of the whole novel (say, the scene at the end) from the beginning. But the editorial work that his wife, Carol, faces every day, is awe-inspiring," she said, "and she typed the manuscript, and every night she had to type several pages, and she had to not only decipher his words, but also mark the intervals between paragraphs, clarify spelling when the Jodds were speaking—dialects were not always easy to copy... Of course, all the text is Steinbeck's. But it was carol who made the book come into being, as the dedication points out".
John Steinbeck's estate-led company says, "Promoting this writer's work is an ongoing process." "Wherever possible, heritage companies will strive to launch more new publications that comply with the law, which may provide more insight into John Steinbeck's work and creative process," the company said in a statement about the publication.
Reference Links:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/oct/04/handwritten-manuscript-of-the-grapes-of-wrath-to-be-published-for-the-first-time-john-steinbeck
Compilation 丨 Wu Junshen
Editor 丨 Zhang Jin
Proofreading 丨 Lucy